This work was commissioned and published by Huck Magazine, below is an extract from the piece, written by Ben Smoke -
February 2021
"It’s February and the pandemic is entering its eleventh month in the UK. It’s warm in the ward, under layers of PPE, but through the narrow windows that line the wall above the beds, you can see the snow falling outside. It’s quiet, almost peaceful, but for the intermittent beeps and alarms of machines and the muffled conversation of medical staff swarming around each bed, changing dressings, cleaning, flipping patients over.
The ICU is populated by ‘Covid potential’ patients: people who’ve come in from the community with ailments not associated with the disease, but who could potentially be infected with it. Patient numbers on this ward are “almost back to normal,” Susan says wearily. There are four occupied beds currently but, looking around, normal is far from how one might describe the scene.
In buildings like Homerton across the country, tens of thousands of people work every day to keep people alive; to fight against coronavirus. On the outside, things look like they are beginning to turn a corner: infection rates are dropping daily and the vaccination programme is advancing at speed. But here, inside, the horror continues unabated. The idea of prematurely relaxing lockdown measures is immediately met with alarm from everyone you ask. They plead for people to stay at home. To help get rates down. As gruelling and relentless as this pandemic has been for everyone, you can’t help but wonder what the long-term impact will be on those who have been on the frontlines. "